Senior Systems Administrator

Title: Senior Systems Administrator Location: Colorado Springs

Why This Role Matters At Bluestaq, mission success depends on systems that are secure, reliable, and always ready. As a Senior Systems Administrator, you'll keep critical infrastructure running — maintaining, monitoring, and troubleshooting the applications and systems our teams and customers depend on around the clock. Your work directly strengthens the technical backbone behind Bluestaq's most important missions.

What You'll Own:

• Maintain and support the integrity of system networks through technical support and configuration management
• Perform daily maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshooting of applications, networking problems, and systems issues across both cloud-hosted and on-premises platforms
• Serve as a primary escalation point (Tier 2/3) for infrastructure incidents, outages, and performance degradation
• Administer Active Directory including GPO, role-based access controls, and user/group policy management
• Support cloud identity and access management (IAM) tools and practices
• Build and maintain automation workflows using Ansible, Terraform, Docker, and Kubernetes to reduce manual effort and improve reliability
• Perform software and system installations, upgrades, routine automation, and cybersecurity risk mitigation tasks
• Provide responsive, solutions-oriented support to system users, ensuring reliable access to tools and systems
• Maintain accurate, thorough documentation in Confluence — system configurations, change records, runbooks, and SOPs
• Track and manage work through Jira, communicating scope and status effectively to the team and stakeholders
• Support 24/7 operations including shift work and on-call rotations as mission requires
• Contribute to team knowledge sharing and support the mentorship of junior administrators (L1/L2)
• Proactively identify issues, anticipate roadblocks, and escalate appropriately when needed
• Take responsibility for personal development and demonstrate a growth mindset
• You use modern AI tools with judgment: integrating them into workflows where they're impactful, reviewing their outputs, and handling proprietary or sensitive data responsibly

What You Bring: 

Must-Have:

• Willing to support 24/7 operations and shift work
• Ability to obtain a US government clearance
• Proficient understanding of Linux systems administration in production environments
• Hands-on Active Directory administration experience
• Experience with cloud identity and access management (IAM) tools
• Working knowledge of system vulnerabilities and security issues
• Solid networking fundamentals — DNS, DHCP, VLANs, firewalls, and routing
• Working experience with automation and infrastructure-as-code tools (Ansible, Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, or Packer)
• Experience with cloud computing concepts and the AWS component stack
• Strong troubleshooting and debugging skills — curious and investigative approach to problem-solving
• Hands-on experience with Atlassian tools — Confluence and Jira
• Experience with help desk/ITSM systems and ticketing workflows
• Strong collaboration skills — comfortable working across multiple teams and sharing knowledge
• Strong written and verbal communication skills — comfortable working directly with customers, end users, and engineering teams
• Ability to obtain CompTIA Security+ certification
• Ownership mindset — you follow through, document your work, and find the right balance between persevering and asking for help

Bonus:

• CISSP or CEH certification
• Advanced Ansible, Terraform, or Kubernetes usage in classified or production environments
• Linux certifications (RHCSA, RHCE, LPIC, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines or DevSecOps practices

Required Education: 2+ years of systems administration/information technology experience with a Bachelor's degree OR an Associate degree with 2 additional years of experience beyond the minimum required OR a High School Diploma/GED with 4 additional years of experience beyond the minimum required may be substituted in lieu of a degree.